02-14-10 God In Hard Times

6Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, 7casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. 8Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. 10After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you. 11To Him be dominion forever and ever. Amen.

We have come to the final major passage in Peter’s first letter,

six verses at the end of chapter 5,

six verses in which he takes the very heart of everything he’s been saying throughout this letter

and hands it to us in one concise, powerful statement.

This is Peter at his absolute best,

the practical, honest, down-to-earth Peter

who lived in a very real world,

facing very real pain, and suffering, and turmoil,

and then sharing with us

how this God of endless love and compassion fits into that pain.

It is certainly no accident that these six verses are located where they are in this letter.

This is Peter’s final statement of truth

that he has been preparing us for since the first sentence he wrote.

And if we remember nothing else from his writing,

he wants to be sure we remember this.

Like most of the other truths we’ve encountered throughout this letter

what we have here is not easy for us to hear.

It’s not complicated,

but it’s also not what we hoped Peter would say.

What we think we want

is to hear Peter assure us that our God will somehow miraculously surround us in a protective bubble when we come to Him,

that He will make certain that we are insulated from any real turmoil in our life,

that our union with our God

will cause us to be coated with a sort of cosmic Teflon

that causes all evil, all pain, all turmoil, all suffering to just slide off of us.

But of course this isn’t even remotely what Peter has given us throughout this letter.

And we certainly shouldn’t be surprised,

given the fact that these words were being written

by a man who was anticipating his own imminent martyrdom

because of his faithfulness to his Lord.

But what he does give us in these final few verses is even better.

It is a statement of tremendous hope,

a statement that gives us the most powerful affirmation of our God’s love for us

even at the most difficult times in life.

I want us to walk through Peter’s comments here phrase-by-phrase

because each one of them contain attitudes

that provide us with powerful protection

against so many of the lies used by Satan to defeat us.

And I will tell you right now

that the greatest challenge we will face with this passage

is allowing ourselves to listen to Peter

long enough so that we understand the first 9 words of the passage.

Peter begins, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God...”

For some of you

that phrase right there

triggers some emotional responses within you

that make it very difficult for you to continue listening to what Peter is really saying.

They are responses that may spring up in you

because of some things that took place

between you and your human father

when you were under his control.

When you heard Peter saying, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God...”,

what you really heard was “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of Dad...”,

and what you pictured

was not a mighty hand holding your tiny one

as you walked across a rough pathway

to make sure you didn’t stumble;

it wasn’t a mighty hand

resting on your shoulder,

communicating love,

and support,

and encouragement,

and affirmation at a time when you were filled with doubts about yourself;

it wasn’t a mighty hand stretched out to catch you

as you jumped into his arms.

It was a mighty hand

you never saw near you,

a mighty hand you never felt touching you

unless it was raised against you in anger or in frustration or in punishment.

If so, then we have some work to do

before we can go any farther in Peter’s comments.

And, if you find yourself recoiling at that phrase, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God...”

I need to have you listen carefully to what I’m going to say to you right now.

Your God is not your dad,

and He is, in fact, nothing like him whatsoever.

He is not filled with wrath against you

and His goal is certainly not to attempt to beat you into submission.

In fact, His goal, His longing, His purpose is exactly the opposite.

We know that from this passage

because of the second half of that first sentence:

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time...”

You see, it is in that second phrase

that Peter reveals to us

the heart intent of our God for each of us.

He wants to honor you,

to exalt you,

to display His delight in you for all to see.

This word exalt is a fascinating word.

It is the same word used in Acts 5:31 to describe

what God the Father did with Christ following the resurrection.

ACT 5:31 "He is the one whom God exalted to His right hand as a Prince and a Savior...

Peter’s obvious intent in this opening sentence

is to give us God’s perspective

on what is really going on in our lives

so that we do not loose heart.

He is saying,

“If you think your life doesn’t matter,

if you think your choices don’t matter,

if you think you are an unimportant nobody

living a life that’s going nowhere,

then you have no concept of who you are

or what’s really going on.

Paul uses a phrase in the second chapter of Ephesians

that perfectly parallels what Peter is saying to us here.

He describes us this way.

EPH 2:10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

When God wants to illustrate His creative genius,

He doesn’t point us to the mountains,

or to the animal kingdom,

or to the oceans.

He points us to His recreative work

in the lives of His people.

Right now there is a recreative work being accomplished in you by your God,

a work that, at the proper time,

He will bring to light in such a way

that it will have a powerful impact on all who see.

And when Peter calls us to “Humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt us at the proper time...”

he is offering us a powerful perspective

on the true nature of God’s work in our lives.

Maybe this will help -

when Peter tells us to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God,

the image he is creating

is not one of a mighty hand raised against us,

it is the image of the mighty hand of God

placed over us as a shelter,

a protection,

guarding us against those forces that would seek to destroy us

before His recreative work in us is ready for revelation.

It is picturing the same type of thing

that takes place in the best of human family structures.

We live in a world filled to overflowing with filth,

with evil,

with corruption that seems to have no limits.

It is virtually impossible now days

to turn on a computer

and check the e-mail

without some little piece of sewage

coming in with the notes.

And yet, every child that enters this world

enters it untouched by that evil,

knowing nothing whatsoever

of that corruption, that filth.

How in the world can we hope to equip and prepare our children for healthy, effective living in such a world?

We do it by creating for them

a protective world within the family,

not a world in which thy are caged and isolated,

but a world in which life is filtered for them

in a way that allows them to grow and learn and develop

without being submerged in the things they are not yet able to process.

And that is what the mighty hand of God does

for each of us who choose to trust His leadership

and submit to His oversight in our lives.

But that doesn’t mean it’s always easy for us.

In fact, sometimes it’s very difficult indeed.

Sometimes we feel helpless,

sometimes we feel attacked without cause,

sometimes we feel utterly overwhelmed and alone.

Sometimes the very fact that we are God’s children

makes our lives so much more difficult

because we know our choices matter

and sometimes those choices come at a very high price indeed.

And, of course, Peter knows that too.

He knows the added turmoil that will always accompany

a life lived in submission to God.

And so Peter adds one more phrase

to complete that first sentence.

He says,

1PE 5:7 casting all your anxiety upon Him, because He cares for you.

And before we move on,

let me just point out the obvious.

First of all, it’s an active process,

and one that requires us to approach our God as if He was really there.

And second, it requires us to remember once again

the first things -

that our God cares.

He cares about you.

He cares about your confusion,

your pain,

your frustration,

your life.

Do you remember that description of God’s relationship with you

that we looked at two weeks ago?

I hope you never forget it.

PSA 56:8 You have taken account of my wanderings; Put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your book?

Can you hear the depth of God’s feeling in that statement?

Do you think He doesn’t know when you hurt?

Not only does He know,

but He is right there with you,

catching each tear, keeping it in His bottle,

and then recording forever what caused that pain.

Do you recall that account of Jesus

as He stood outside the tomb of His friend, Lazarus?

JOH 11:32-36 Therefore, when Mary came where Jesus was, she saw Him, and fell at His feet, saying to Him, "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died." When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled, and said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to Him, "Lord, come and see." Jesus wept. So the Jews were saying, "See how He loved him!"

And that last phrase is crucial to our understanding of our God...See how He loved him!

It was a love rooted in His choices,

but a love that also deeply affected Him at the feeling level.

And let me just say here

that, if our understanding of God’s relationship with us

does not allow for that kind of feeling on His part toward us,

then we do not yet know the heart of our God.

Would your God stand before your tomb and cry?

Or more to the point,

does your God cry with you

for those wounds inflicted on you so many years ago

by a father or mother who didn’t love you,

or by an uncle or brother or neighbor who abused you?

He cannot yet put all things right,

but He can and does go with us through all things,

and He feels them with us,

and He can and does bring healing and redemption into our lives

as we allow Him into our pain.

Let me tell you what it sounds like

when we take Peter at his word.

“Lord, unless you are real,

and unless you care,

and unless I really do matter to You,

I have no hope.

Unless You really do hear,

and unless You will walk with me,

and work in me,

and recreate me once again,

I have no other answers.

I need You, God.

Please, do Your healing work in me,

and give me eyes to see it.”

But that is not where Peter’s comments stop,

not by a long shot.

From there Peter goes on to warn us

that, especially when we are hurting,

we are exceptionally vulnerable to certain types of attacks.

He says,

1PE 5:8 Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

And let me tell you what the voice of Satan sounds like.

“You know, don’t you,

that you’ll never make it through this.

If God really loved you

He would never have allowed you to go through what you’re going through right now.

You’re pretty much on your own in this.

Either God doesn’t care,

or else you’ve done something

that’s made Him turn His back on you.”

Or maybe like this:

“You are completely unqualified for the work God has given you to do.

You simply don’t have what it takes.

You don’t have the right personality.

You don’t have the right training.

You lack the gifts necessary.

You’ll never successfully raise those kids of yours.

You’re going to fail utterly as a husband,

as a wife,

as a father or mother.

What you’re doing, you’re doing poorly,

and you might just as well face the truth.”

Or possibly this:

“Take a look at your past!

Are you really the type of person God would care about?

Are you really the type of person He would choose to love and work through?

You know your track record.

You’ve failed in the past,

and you’ll fail in the future,

because, of course, that’s what you are -

you’re God’s failure,

and you always will be.”

Or perhaps this:

“Look at you. You’ve really got what it takes.

You’ve got the training,

you’ve got the credentials,

you’ve got the determination and the charisma. You can pull this off. You can do it!”

Each attack is carefully crafted

to fit with our own particular vulnerabilities.

But they all share one thing in common.

They are all rooted in lies,

lies designed to blind us to the truth -

our God lives within us,

our God lives through us,

our God goes with us through everything.

He has made us adequate for the life He’s called us to live,

and He will bring us through.

Well, Peter then concludes

with two strong statements of encouragement.

First of all, he wants us to know

we are not the first to face these battles.

1PE 5:9 But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world.

And with that,

he wants us to know that there are others, many others who have been exactly where we are,

and who have found their way through to true victory.

And then, finally,

he wants us to know

that ultimately the healing

and the victory will come not from our ability to heal ourselves,

but from God’s ability and willingness

to bring us into the freedom we long for.

1PE 5:10-11 And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you. To Him be dominion forever and ever. Amen.

And there is one phrase there, of course,

that we can’t just skip over.

It’s that phrase, “after you have suffered for a little while”.

First of all we want to know why it’s there at all,

and second we want to know how long that is.

Well, I can tell you why it’s there.

It’s there because this is the only world available for us right now,

a world in which our own rebellion against our Creator

has created a world in which pain and suffering in an endless variety of forms

are always with us.

There simply is no such thing

as a life without some measure of suffering.

But that is not the whole picture.

Because in the most remarkable way

God’s plan of redemption for us

doesn’t just cope with our suffering or compensate for it,

it reforms it into good that would never have existed

had we not gone through the suffering.

Some of that good comes in the form of our discoveries about the love our God has for us,

learning things about His love

that we simply could never ever have understood

had He not walked with us through the pain.

And it is an understanding that changes our life with Him for the better forever.

Finding out we have a God who can deliver us from pain is fine,

but finding out we have a God who can deliver us through pain is an altogether different thing.

And that’s what it’s all about, of course, - discovering who our God is.

And some of that good comes in the form of things our God is able to accomplish within us

and within others because of the pain.

We become different people when we hurt in the presence of the love of God.

And how long is “a little while”?

Well, there have been times in my life when “a little while”

is a few minutes,

or a few hours,

or a few days.

And there have been times when “a little while”

has been measured best in months or years.

I know we don’t like that,

we don’t like it any more than we like the pain.

But I will tell you honestly

that discovering we have a God who goes with us

through anything we go through,

a God who feels our pain with us,

and a God who can fill us with the knowledge of His love

even in the midst of the worst the world can throw at us

is a discovery that will transform our lives forever.